Apostichopus californicus
(Stimpson, 1857) · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Apostichopus californicus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation4 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility22 610 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System21 088 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI7 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics61 specimens↗
LOTUSNatural Products (Wikidata)compounds↗
NPASSNat. Product Activity & Species Sourcecompounds↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The California sea cucumber (Apostichopus californicus), also known as the giant California sea cucumber, is a sea cucumber that can be found from the Gulf of Alaska to Baja California. It is found from the low intertidal zone to a depth of 250 m. They are most abundant in areas with moderate current with cobbles, boulders or bedrock. They are artisanally fished.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
Habitat & environment2
Other traits2
Compounds documented for Apostichopus californicus across natural-product and food-composition databases — not just the ~150 nutrients on a classic label ("nutritional dark matter").
Compound class profile2 classes
Documented compounds3 total
| Compound | Class | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| (3S,8S,10S,13R,14S,17R)-4,4,10,13,14-pentamethyl-17-[(2R)-6-methylheptan-2-yl]-2,3,5,6,7,8,12,15,16,17-decahydro-1H-cyclopenta[a]phenanthren-3-ol | present | LOTUS | |
| Egonol | present | NPASS | |
| Parkeol | present | LOTUS |
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Apostichopus californicus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Apostichopus californicus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type43 698 records
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions4 of 10 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Santa Barbara Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 17 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 16 |
| Hakai Institutelocation not on record | 9 |
| Cambridge, US | 5 |
| Washington, US | 4 |
| Los Angeles, US | 4 |
| Florida Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 2 |
| Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Department of Invertebrate Zoologylocation not on record | 2 |
| Victoria, CA | 1 |
| Royal British Columbia Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Apostichopus californicus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Measured at samplingin-field
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.